End of term is finally here and BOY HAS IT BEEN STRESSFUL AND LONG!!, University is closed, all the ‘6 wings for 2.99’ places are closed, everyone went home as soon as the first Saturday came, so you can say it is officially Christmas and a month off sounds like heaven!! Except that it’s not!! They tell you to have happy holidays but would someone tell me what is so happy about having to stay at uni for an extra 2 weeks to get more work done? Reading sources, and then re-reading sources, honestly, the highlighter has become my best friend! The workload is never ending, the printing credit is never enough and as soon as I’ve ticked something off my list and deemed it completed, that frown that’s about to turn upside down…doesn’t. It’s like there is always something to do, feeling like I’m far behind has become a consistent emotion lately, and when stress is surrounding me everything seems impossible! … But that’s what drives me to want to achieve this degree!! Graduate with that hat and prove everyone wrong because I made it!

What I’m trying to say is, it probably feels like the end of the world right now facing all these final end of term deadlines, exams, dissertation proposal/chapters all due for the next couple of weeks but all this work and these deadlines are just hurdles you need to overcome! There are always going to be obstacles, you’ve just got to work your way around them! Everyone has a breakdown where they think they can’t manage anymore, believe me! I was going through it last week and my poor sister had to be at the other end of it, consoling me and proving that I could do it!! It’s not a bad thing to have a helping hand, to have someone there for motivation, to talk to someone, or just for reassurance, always remember, everyone is in the same boat, if it isn’t work they’re trying to tackle it’s something else and the only way to get through it is by following the rule ‘a problem shared, is a problem halved’, because we are all in this together, we’re not competing, we’re side by side and I hope we all make it!!

My sister gave me some useful advice (during my breakdown), she said to put everything into perspective at this stage was simply to think of the future. The journey is tiresome, difficult and emotional, but in the long run it will all pay off, right now you may regret going out, missing an epic night out but there are going to be more nights to come! At the moment, focus is key, your friends aren’t going to leave you for wanting to do well, if anything they shall be supportive! Nobody is saying that you need to chain yourself to a room and never leave, it’s healthy to have a social and work balance but what I’m trying to put in to perspective is that if you want that empire, that independent luxurious living, something you’ve earned and that you can call your own, then don’t worry about these late nights, long hours, stressful weeks working because in the long run what is coming ahead is what counts, and that my friend is success.

Have a lovely Christmas, ya filthy animals! It’ll all be worth it in the long run!!

We’re finally hitting November, I finally have internet, and final year stress is practically through the roof! October has flown by, and refreshers week became refreshers month, and everything was simply a blur! Coming back to uni, means coming back to refreshers week and whilst our refreshers week is different, seeing the new fresher’s only does one thing. Well two things, firstly, yes it makes me feel old, but secondly? It brings back the joys and memories of fresher’s week or more like fresher’s month, scrap that FRESHERS YEAR! Creating my ‘uni family’ was one of the best experiences I ever had at uni. Nobody knew anybody, yet somehow we were all friends. It was all good loving and all good living!

All the promoters roaming around our hall’s recruiting ticket sellers, and as fresher’s yes we were excited, feeling like we were going to make big bucks and live the life of Scott Disick at uni! When realistically, we’d have to run halfway through town to sell these tickets, in the cold autumn weather and make about £1 off each ticket at the most! It sounds like a rip off now, but those nights when you were broke and counting pennies from your ‘savings jar’ that you’d promised your parents you would fill with money put aside each week for savings, (yeah, that never happened) that ticket money was gold dust! It provided a club entry and possibly even 2 tequilas!

The flat parties were the best memories and the most hilarious memories, nobody knew anybody and your flat parties consisted of your random new friends, who brought friends of friends, who brought friends from other flats who’ve made new flat friends and because everyone winded up at the same place, your flat became the party flat that hosted parties pretty much every day for the first month. Yes, it happens. And if by this time you hadn’t received any noise complaints, visits and letters from the janitor or had any flatmates leave due to the fact that every hour of every day was accompanied by music blasting from the kitchen speakers in the flat, (yes all of these things happened) then from my experience, you did not do fresher’s right!

The ‘Uni Family’ is the best thing you will gain from your university experience obviously alongside your degree! Everyone has their own role, from the ‘motherly’ figure, the birthday present organisers, the ticket providers, the clean freaks and the ones who provide alcohol, cups and ice at every session! Oh and let’s never forget the ones who ALWAYS, without a doubt will lose their keys or their phone! 90% of your time is going to be spent with them, from Uni days off, to meeting up between lectures, to midnight missions to the 24 hour Maccys, to sitting around in silence and reflecting on life and yes, even to the 4am walks back from the Uni library because even though you had a month to do your deadline, somehow doing nothing with the ‘uni family’ became more fun and now all-nighters with the whole group is the only solution. All for one and one for all as they say! Within the first week of uni, without a doubt you’ll end up having a Whatsapp group with about 30 people in there and by the end of the month, it will be about a strong 10 if not less. This will be your social life forever, your contact point for everything and your daily news and events for the whole year. The memes, the jokes, piecing your night together just adds to the hangovers of your morning and slowly but surely, people will leave, and people will be added but this group will eventually be filled with the people that you know you’re going to graduate with.

Now that I’m in final year and that my dissertation has become a priority, I am still grateful that I found my uni family within the first week of fresher’s, because even to this day… three years later, we’re all focusing on our individual degrees but we still have that time to meet up for a Nando’s or a movie night! And no matter how busy we all are, there’s always time to kick it with your girls! It’s true! The friends that become family at uni, are family for life! And they’ll be there graduating alongside you and reminiscing about everything in years to come!

This is my first ever blog! My sister has been going on and on and badgering me about how I should be out there and making connections with the world and offering them what I have and making my mark! So I thought, I’m 22, I’m still ‘young’, I’m a student and there’s thousands of other people who are exactly in the same boat as me, and the only thing I can stress about being on this boat is? It’s gonna be a fun BOAT PARTY! Make the most of it!

I’m currently studying at university! And I finally made it to final year! Not that I’ve had numerous attempts, but getting at least over 40% at University has suddenly become more than just an achievement! You’d think I’d be excited to be living out and partying up my final year, but lets face it… there is just no more time for nights out! I’m actually feeling so old these days that a glass of wine finishes me off and I’m ready for bed… and the freshers? They’re going to be 4 years younger than me! They might aswell make an OAP section with sit down chairs in the club especially for buddiya like me!

And then there’s student loan, THERE IS A GOD! Every student knows about Loan day, Loan day is like Christmas Day, it makes you buy stuff that you don’t even use, the amount of stuff I came home with at the end of my 2nd year is disgusting, it was useless, worthless garbage that my parents won’t even let me store in the loft, it is not even worthy of hoarding! Loan day is God’s way of testing you, if you can manage to not spend it within the first week you should get an award! With me? I learnt the hard way, I learnt that loan day should never be referred to as “free money day” because you know you’re going to be paying every penny back and that living off “Supernoodles” for the rest of that year and sending a cheeky text to your siblings cause your poor is not cool! Loan day is God’s way of telling you to make a budget!!

But this is my last and final year, this is the last time I can get away with being called a ‘student’, my discount card will only work for this year 😦 and I will be able to have 10% off every piece of food and clothing I want, and this just upsets me! I will no longer after this year be able to sleep in till noon and call it a ‘lie in’, I will not be able to leave food lying around and blame it on the fact ‘I’m a student’ when it goes mouldy, I will not be able to binge drink on weekdays and deem it acceptable to wake up with a hangover the following day. I’m going to have to grow up and realise not only do I have to find a job but that the Rishta Bureau will also be coming my way! There will be auntiya left, right and centre, questioning me about my roti and sabhji techniques, my roti’s barely round let alone making sabhji!! And then telling them I’ve graduated? Well that will only attract them to me like diabetes on a ladoo!! All I’m trying to say is, make the most of uni, make good memories and make good friends, because before you know it you’ll be hitting the real world, and that means having to be ‘an adult’!